Half Metal Panic
by Lord Raa
Summary: A Ranma and Full Metal Panic crossover. A few rewrites inside for chapters 1-3. If you care, that is.
1. Tease me do

Half Metal Panic! 

by Lord Raa

Prologue

* * *

Disclaim-me-do: What? Where I am now? Who are you people? What are you doing in my house? Where are my clothes? Why am I naked and sticky? Have I been raped by a jar of clear honey? Again?

* * *

Captain Testarossa sat at her desk looking at the latest report concerning the "Whispered" project. It seemed that this latest test subject to come to Mithril's attention was a young male currently residing in Nerima. Looking at his photograph, the young captain was taken in by his features. 

"He's cute. I hope that the team I assigned can keep him safe, what with all those that would try to harm him."

* * *

Back in Nerima, Ranma Saotome sneezed. 

This was enough distraction for his father to utilise a sneak attack and dunk him in the Tendo's koi pond. "Damn," she cursed

"That should teach you to pay attention in a fight, boy."

"So it's a beating you want is it Pops," the red head asked in a dangerous tone.

Genma backed off slightly as he noticed the look in his child's eyes. But before he could run off to safet- er move to a better fighting position, Ranma had closed the distance and started pounding the blubbery martial artist.

Nabiki had come down the stairs for breakfast, pausing to grumble internally about noisy, overly-energetic fools she sat down for her morning meal.

Ranma walked back into the house with smile on her features. "Good morning Nabiki. Good morning Kasumi."

"Good morning Ranma-kun," Kasumi returned. She handed Ranma a kettle of hot water, which tragically contained only enough to change Ranma.

Nabiki shot Ranma a glare which quickly softened when she saw the state of Genma. "Good morning Ranma. I see that you are keeping up with your practice."

"Oh yes, I've got to stay in shape. It wouldn't do for me to get lardy like pops," Ranma joked.

Hey! a poorly written sign protested. Pandas are supposed to be this shape.

"Yeah, but not people, Pops," Ranma pointed out as he dodged a wooden sign.

Akane returned from her morning jog. "Stop fighting at the table Ranma!"

Ranma rolled his eyes. "Tell that to Pops."

Kasumi shot the panda a look of disapproval. When the hairy beast shuddered and bowed its head in apology, Kasumi's normal cheery smile returned.

* * *

After a calm and relaxed meal, Ranma walked to school with his fiancée and soon to be sister-in-law. Ranma was engaging in pleasant small talk with the Tendos, managing not to insult anybody. Well, this was Ranma, so the conversation wasn't exactly sparkling. 

Upon reaching the gates, Kuno made his appearence.

"Akane Tendo, why do you continue to tolerate the presence of the foul sorcerer when you can bask in my gloriousness?"

Nabiki laughed at Kuno's pomposity while Ranma scratched his head.

"Ya wot?"

Kuno puffed out his chest in a display of arrogance that rivaled the "I'm Ranma Satome, and I don't lose" speech. "See, the cretin is as inarticulate as ever. Compared to my fine mastery of language, he is but a savage."

Ranma took offence at that. "I might have had a patchy education compared to you, but I can still whoop your ass, Blue Blunder!"

"That's Blue Thunder! And you just proved my point about your intellect."

"And I'm about to prove mine, moron."

With that, Ranma rushed forward and gave Kuno a knuckle sandwich.

Standing over the semi-conscious kendoist, Ranma spoke slowly, as if it were Kuno were a child. "Why do you keep challenging me? You haven't improved since I got here, Akane doesn't like you, the pigtailed girl doesn't like you. In fact, nobody likes you."

"Lies" was all Kuno could manage before he felt that a nap would be a good idea.

* * *

At the start of the school day, the teacher introduced their new classmate. 

"Hello, this is Kaname Chidori. She'll be joining us for the rest of the school year. Miss Chidori, if you'll introduce yourself."

The buxom young blue haired girl bowed to the class. "Hello my name is Kaname Chidori. My interests include sports, music and reading. My favourite genre is thrillers, especially political and cold war spy stories."

Akane and Ukyo relaxed as Ranma and the new girl seemed oblivious to each other's existance. It wouldn't do for another fiancée to show up.

Ranma barely paid the new arrival attention, knowing that just looking at her would upset his fiancées. Luckily for him, Kaname was seated at the other end of the classroom, but that still left him with the feeling that something was going to happen very soon.

* * *

To be continued... 

Mwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

What kind of nasty man would do this to you guys? I mean, just leaving this as a teaser with who knows what planned for this fic?

FYI: This is a messed up Full Metal Panic timeline, but the Ranma is pretty standard minus the addition of the FMP elements. This won't be a Ranma/Akane match up as I just cannot make them interesting to me. And if I don't want to read my work, then why should you?

Thanks go to Chi Vayne, whom I conned into pre-reading this.


	2. Chapter 1

Half Metal Panic

By Lord Raa

Chapter 01

* * *

Disclaim-me-do: According to the Chair leg of Truth, I do not own the intellectual copyrights to the component series'. Which, in case you were wondering, are Ranma ½ and Full Metal Panic!

* * *

Sergeant Kurz Webber was grumbling about his latest assignment: babysitting some punk kid. It wouldn't be so bad if it was a group of pretty girls but he didn't like the idea of watching over a teenaged boy with an attitude.

Putting off his protests at the injustice at it all, he made a sweep of the area in his Arm Slave.

Kurz liked the Arm Slave, or AS, as a weapon system. It granted the firepower of tanks with the manoeuvrability of heavy infantry. Admittedly, it was that of 8 and a half-ton infantryman, but it gave Mithril a great advantage in combat situations.

It also helped that you could punch holes in walls and pick up light vehicles and throw them as if they were toys.

As a highly advanced weapon, it put most vehicles to shame, but it was the camouflage system of the AS that truly set it apart from the rest of the ground vehicles. Not a radar absorbing paint scheme that broke up the out line, but an electronic system that made it invisible to most detection devices.

Kurz set the AS sensor suite to full passive scan and went out on his patrol.

* * *

Ranma walked home with Akane and Nabiki happy in the knowledge that he was not in the Tendo's bad books.

The fact that Kaname Chidori had completely ignored Ranma and the fiancées had helped his current situation.

It seemed that she was a normal student, if though her tastes were a bit out of the ordinary when it came to popular culture. It was as if she hadn't had access to what would be called "normal" things for girls her age. If she had mentioned that she was a martial artist, then the rumourmongers would have had a field day and Ranma would have enjoyed yet another argument with Akane about his intentions.

Nabiki asked her sister about the new arrival, to which Akane replied, "she seems nice enough, but I didn't get much chance to talk with her."

Nabiki was about to mention something to Ranma, when a nearby wall exploded.

Ranma leapt in front of the Tendos, his eyes scanning the clouds of dust for a threat. 'Where are you

chan?' he thought as he angrily recalled the Lost Boy's penchant for property damage.

Before the dust even settled, Ranma had pinned the culprit to the remains of the wall by the throat.

"Well? Who are you?"

The unwelcome visitor managed to choke out "Screw you!"

"Wrong answer, buddy."

Ranma punched the man in the solar plexus, flooring him. Turning to the Tendo sisters, he asked if they were all right.

Nabiki nodded, while Akane seemed angry. "Just who is this Ranma? Another rival? A jealous boyfriend of some floozy you picked up?

"I don't know, Akane. He came from nowhere!" Ranma seemed tired of the idea that he was the one responsible for all of Nerima's disturbances. "And I don't go around picking up floozies!

Nabiki shook her head and Akane's naïve point of view. 'If only she could see how lucky she is to have Ranma, she'd treat him with a lot more respect.'

The man went with his back up plan. Pulling a silenced, single shot pistol from his boot, he charged Ranma.

As Ranma turned too late to face his assailant, he was treated to a vicious gunshot wound to his belly.

Ranma's face contorted in pain as the bullet forced its way in, almost all the way through.

Staggering backwards, he quickly recovered enough to shatter the assailant's jaw with a powerful backhand before collapsing to his knees.

Nabiki and Akane rushed to Ranma's side and checked his wound.

"Ranma, can you walk?" Akane asked.

"Akane, you idiot! He shouldn't move until an ambulance gets here," Nabiki chided her sister.

"But he always got up after every other injury!"

"He's never bled like this before."

As the sisters bickered, Ranma fell to the floor, hitting his head on a large piece of debris from the wall.

"Ranma!" Nabiki shouted.

Akane looked on in horror as her fiancé lost consciousness. "Do something Nabiki!"

Luckily, a passing police patrol saw the injured young man and radioed for medical assistance.

* * *

At the hospital, two doctors looked at medical chart for Ranma Saotome.

"He's lucky, two centimetres to the left and he'd have a punctured bladder."

"Yes. But I'd bet that he'll be in pain every time he breathes deeply until the muscles heal."

A nurse walked up to the surgeons. "Excuse me, but will Ranma be able to handle visitors?"

"I'll need to vet them first. Sometimes relatives get too emotional and can set back the recovery of the patient. Who are they?"

"Two of them say they are his parents, plus there are the Tendos. They claim to be his future in-laws."

"His parents? I need to speak with them," the bespectacled medic informed the nurse.

The nurse led the doctor to the waiting room where Nodoka, Genma and the Tendos.

"Hello, I'm Dr Fujishima, I operated on Ranma. He is now in a stable condition, but I wanted to ask his parents a few questions."

"That would be us," Nodoka gestured to herself and Genma.

"I think it would be best if we talked in private, when Ranma came to, he said something that gave the staff cause for concern," Fujishima looked over his glasses at the assembled visitors.

"Was it something about a curse?" Genma hazarded a guess.

"No, we know about his changing sex with water. This, while not as interesting scientifically speaking, is something a lot more troubling," the doctor said somewhat cryptically as he led the Saotomes to an empty office.

As the doctor motioned for the married couple to sit down, Genma began to look nervous. But then he always looked suspicious when authority figures wanted to ask him questions.

"Ranma is under the impression that he tried to kill himself and that you, Mrs Saotome were to act as his second. He mentioned something about not being 'a man among men'. His conviction that he should die was so great that we had to restrain him."

Nodoka gasped. "But I judged him to be manly."

Fujishima looked Nodoka in the eye. "Explain yourself."

Nodoka straightened in her chair. "Genma promised that Ranma would grow up to be a man among men or they'd both commit seppuku. I know that Ranma turns into a girl when splashed with cold water, but I decided long ago to judge my son as a whole, not just the shell visible to the world."

"I'm shocked and disgusted by this situation. The only thing that's stopping me from calling the police is your son's condition. His wound is not self inflicted." Fujishima leaned back in his chair. "You need to convince your son of the truth – that he was shot."

A slightly shocked Nodoka nodded.

"I should warn you that he's in a lot of pain. He's to have no more than two visitors at a time."

Genma grunted in agreement, he'd suffered stomach injuries in the past.

* * *

In the secure ward, Nodoka rushed to her son's side. "Ranma, are you all right?"

"Yeah," Ranma replied in a weak voice. "Mom, why did you change your mind about the seppuku?"

Nodoka knew the reason but needed to hear it for herself. "What do you mean, son?"

Ranma gasped in pain shifted his position in his bed. "I mean you were going to be my second and next thing I know, I'm in the hospital recovering from having a knife in my guts."

"That's not what happened. You should know the truth, son. You defended your fiancée and her sister from some gun wielding maniac."

"Fiancée? What fiancée?" Ranma asked puzzled.

Nodoka blinked. "You know Akane Tendo? You've been living with her and her family for over a year now."

"Tendo?" Ranma repeated. "I don't remember the name. But I think I hit my head, so my memory could be a bit patchy."

Genma had appeared having "borrowed" some food from a nearby ward. 'Now is my chance to get him married to Akane and ensure my retirement.' "Ranma, you should not joke about such things. Akane Tendo is a fine young woman, she cares for you deeply."

"Who are you?" Ranma asked as if he had seen his father for the first time.

Genma's face turned quite stern. "Boy, this is no time to joke. As soon as the doctors let you go, you'll marry your fiancée."

"Well let me see this 'fiancée' of mine. This girl that I don't remember," Ranma was getting tired of the blubbery fool's antics. Turning to his mother, "I don't know who that man is, but I don't trust him."

Nodoka frowned when Ranma turned to face the other way. 'He doesn't remember his fiancée or his father, why does he remember me?'

"Mom?" Ranma ventured.

"Yes Ranma?"

"Why do I get the feeling something's being kept from me?"

Before Nodoka could answer, Ukyo rushed in.

"Ranchan!"

"Are you Akane?"

"NO! I'm Ucchan, your cute fiancée!" Ukyo insisted.

"But Mom said that my fiancée was called Akane something or other."

Ukyo looked at the Saotome matriarch. "What did you tell him? Why can't he remember me?"

Nodoka shifted slightly in her chair. "I told him that he defended his fiancée, Akane Tendo."

"How can I have two fiancées?" Ranma asked his mother.

"You shouldn't. Akane Tendo is your fiancée."

"What about the stolen dowry?" Ukyo countered.

"I don't know anything about that," Nodoka replied.

Ukyo frowned. "Your husband made a deal with my father."

Ranma looked at the newly arrived girl. "You're right about the cute part, but I don't remember anything about any fiancée."

Ukyo was not impressed with this latest turn of events. "What about Shampoo?"

Ranma looked even more puzzled. "What's what brand of shampoo I use got to do with whom I'm supposed to marry?"

Ukyo's face turned neutral. Now that Ranma remembered nothing about any of the fiancées, the playing field was now level. The fact Ranma couldn't remember Shampoo meant that she hadn't sabotaged him.

"What's your name again?" Ranma asked the cross-dressing chef.

"Ukyo Kuonji."

Nodoka decided that Akane needed to bolster her case. "Miss Kuonji, I think you should leave now."

Ukyo was tempted to say something back to Nodoka, but decided that it would do more harm then good for her chances with Ranma. She left silently vowing to make Ranma remember her.

As Akane entered with Genma, she looked at the despondent Ukyo. 'What did they say to each other?'

"Here boy," Genma strode up to Ranma, "this is your fiancée, Akane Tendo."

Ranma looked the shorthaired girl over. "Nope I don't remember her. The first had nicer boobs, though."

Akane felt her anger rise at her callous dismissal at the hands of Ranma. "Just what do you mean that you don't remember me?"

"I have no idea who you are," Ranma shrugged his shoulders.

Genma was beginning to get angry with his son. "Boy, you should be nicer to you fiancée. If you continue this charade any longer, she'll leave you."

Ranma blinked at his father's proximity to his face. "And you are?"

Genma was about to beat some sense into Ranma when Akane realised that her chest had been insulted.

"Ranma, you pervert!"

Slapping the injured boy, he stormed off in a huff. "Flirt with these other girls, see if I care."

"See, she can't be my fiancée if she keeps hitting me," Ranma pointed out to Genma. "Mom, are you sure about that seppuku thing?"

"Of course son. You were attacked," Nodoka insisted.

Ranma yawned. "I'm tired, but will you come back to visit me tomorrow, Mom? We can get to know each other better."

"Yes Ranma, of course," Nodoka nodded. 'Perhaps I was wrong about Akane.'

"Son, I'll have words with the Tendos about you moving back in with me."

* * *

Soun was on the verge of tears when he saw Akane come striding out of the ward, her stream of profanities turning the air blue.

When Nodoka ushered Genma out, she had a serious look on her face. "Soun, I have some bad news. Ranma doesn't remember any of his fiancées or his father. He thought that I forced him to commit seppuku and then had a change of heart and called an ambulance."

Nabiki frowned. 'If Ranma can't remember Akane, then she's probably lost her chance. Should see if I can pick up the arrangement? Nah, he's cute but not worth all that hassle.' "Father, perhaps I should talk to Ranma?"

Soun and Genma's faces lit up.

"Yes Nabiki, you often managed to make Ranma see sense," Kasumi remembered.

* * *

Nabiki thought about how to handle Ranma. Her standard manipulation tactics could be ineffective if Ranma really had lost part of his memory. But she had limited options at the moment.

She noted that Ranma had a handprint on his left cheek. "Well Ranma, I see that you still know how to get under my sister's skin."

"And you are?" Ranma asked around a yawn.

"Well I was going to be your sister-in-law. But since Akane has dumped you, I guess that it's up to me or Kasumi to fulfil the pact to join the schools of Anything Goes."

"That tells me you are the sister of that Akane and someone named Kasumi. That, while interesting, doesn't tell me your name," Ranma pointed out.

Nabiki sat in the chair next to Ranma. "Ranma, you can drop the act. Though I must admit it's surprisingly good."

Ranma was no longer in the mood for more games being played on him by someone else he didn't recognize. "Look, I don't remember any fiancées and I'm not in the market for any." He yawned again. "You want the truth? You're attractive, but I get a vibe that says I shouldn't trust you."

Nabiki managed to keep her mask of ice in place at Ranma's harsh dismissal, but Ranma had fallen asleep before she could respond.

Walking off, she wondered if she had pushed Ranma too far in the past and that it was his subconscious that was protecting him in his weakened state.

A nurse noticed that Ranma was in no state to receive any more visitors and gave the bad news to the growing crowd out in the waiting room.

* * *

That evening Nodoka asked Genma about the whole Ukyo Kuonji situation and she was not impressed with the web of lies that her husband had spun.

"So let me get this straight: Ukyo is a girl Ranma met on your training journey and became obsessed with him. Ranma took pity on the girl and agreed to go a date with her, she convinced her father to engage the two of them and offered you an okonomiyaki cart as dowry. You refused because of the pledge to unite the schools of Anything Goes, but both the Kuonjis were insistent that an agreement was in place and that she is affianced to our son?"

"Yes."

Nodoka looked at Genma, but for some reason his couldn't meet her gaze. "You aren't getting any dinner until you tell me the truth, Genma."

"But it is the truth, dear," Genma protested.

"I recall the antics of Mr Panda every time I visited the Tendos. This is your last chance to tell me the truth." Nodoka reached for her sword as she spoke.

Genma started to sweat. 'Time for "Crouch of the Wild Tiger".'

As Genma touched the floor with his forehead, Nodoka's face became stern. "This had better be good, or you're in for a lot of trouble."

"I'm sorry No-chan, I sort of accidentally engaged Ranma several times. I thought that if a number of girls chased after him, it would allow him to practice so he could be manly enough with his wife."

Mrs Saotome had a feeling that the crouching idiot on the floor was trying to pull the wool over her eyes, but the idea of her son being manly with several girls filled her with pride. 'Ranma did appraise the chests of his fiancées earlier, and that would mean that he's seen them naked at some point. And peeping on girls is manly behaviour…' "Genma this had better be the truth – if I find out that these engagements were to fill your stomach, I'm cutting it open! Understand?"

Genma gulped and nodded. "O-of course dear."

Nodoka smiled. "Now, unless you plan on cleaning that floor, get up."

* * *

The next morning, Ranma was transferred to a normal ward. When the doctors looked at Ranma's wound, they were astounded by the rate it had healed. They even suggested that he could go home in a day or two. That suggestion was met with a hearty approval from the Saotomes.

Good food always aided a recovery and Nerima hospital was renowned for its low quality cuisine and as Nodoka was anxious to help her son's recovery, she had brought some of her fine home cooking with her.

As Ranma ate the tempura his mother had cooked, he told her what he remembered. "I'm still a little fuzzy, but I remember being reunited with you after hiding my curse and that makes me ashamed. Can you ever forgive me?"

Nodoka nodded tearfully. "What else do you remember about your life?"

"I now remember who that man was yesterday – he's my father. I think he's cursed like me, but he changes into something. I know it's not a girl, but something else."

"That's right," Nodoka confirmed. "He turns into a panda. Can you remember anything about your fiancées?"

Ranma sighed, "I think so. But they're not all good memories."

'This does not bode well,' Nodoka thought to herself. "What are your instincts and memories telling you about them?"

Ranma took a sip from his juice and a deep breath before answering. "Right, first of all Akane Tendo – she doesn't trust me and has a bit of a temper. Ukyo was my friend when we were growing up, but I thought 'she' was a 'he'. Shampoo has some blind nut-job that's obsessed with her and her great-grandmother has manipulated me more times than I can count."

"So is there a girl that you like?" Nodoka asked, concerned that her manly son had been abused all the women he met.

"Well, to tell you the truth I don't really remember if there is one." Ranma took another sip of his juice to wash down his painkillers.

Nodoka scratched her chin in thought. 'Perhaps it would be best if I gave Ranma the freedom to choose his own girlfriend?'

"Ranma, how would you feel if I annulled all the engagements?"

* * *

To be continued…

More evilness from the author at leaving it her at this awkward place.

I'm sorry for using the clichéd plot device of Ranma gets amnesia, but it will allow for greater comedy value when I get around to writing later chapters.

In case you are wondering, this takes place pre-Saffron, but post Nodoka finding out about the curse.

This is a minor reworking of the story, all because of reader feedback.

Do you like the changes? Can you see where I'm going?

Need to contact me, use email (it's in my profile). You should get you a response before doomsday.


	3. Chapter 2

Half Metal Panic

By Lord Raa

Chapter 2

* * *

Disclaim-me-do: your fiend, Lord Raa, is not responsible for any pain or discomfort experienced during the reading of this fic. He is responsible for… hang on a minute, it's round here somewhere. Ahh, there it is. He is responsible for the "humour content", however low it may be.

* * *

Previously on Half Metal Panic- 

"Ranma, how would you feel if I annulled all the engagements"

And now the continuation...

* * *

At the Mithril field headquarters, Kaname Chidori was getting a dressing down from Lt. Melissa Mao. 

"Just how could you allow the subject to be hospitalised? On the first day of the assignment, no less."

"But it wasn't my watch" Kaname protested. "You knew that I have to socialise with some girls from school to maintain my cover. I phoned in at lunchtime."

Kurz looked nervous when Lt. Mao turned to him. "Really? I wonder who forget to tell me."

"Hey! I'm a soldier, not a secretary," Sgt. Webber protested.

"You're lucky Ranma survived," Mao berated her subordinate, "in spite of your incompetence as a messenger."

'So it's Ranma now, is it?' Kurz wisely kept his observation to himself.

Mao glared at Kurz as she continued her tirade. "We're lucky that I was by the police scanner when the call came in."

Mao didn't mention that she'd infiltrated the hospital, disguised herself as a nurse and taken pictures of a naked, unconscious Ranma.

For identification purposes, you understand. And to assess the wound.

Not at all as part of an apology to the Captain for allowing Ranma to be hurt.

No, that would never happen. Never at all.

And most certainly not for her own private collection of beefcake photos.

Shame on you for thinking that!

* * *

At the same time in Nerima General, Nodoka was discussing the engagement situation with Ranma. 

"Ranma, how would you feel if I annulled all the engagements?"

"To be honest Mom, I'd rather not be engaged just yet" Ranma replied. "I mean Ukyo's cute and all but she acted too possessive. I don't belong to nobody."

Nodoka nearly flinched at the look in Ranma's eyes when he made his declaration. "Yes, of course son."

There was an uncomfortable silence between the Saotomes that Nodoka broke when a thought occurred to her. 'He needs his freedom, but I want to be with my son. Perhaps...' "Ranma, how's this for an idea. There's an apartment block near our house, I could set you up with a place of your own. It's only a few minutes walk from your father and me, but it will give you enough space to be your own man."

Ranma looked at his mother. "Are you sure you're not disappointed with me?"

"No, no Ranma. I think that it would be good for you to get some space" Nodoka placated the injured young man. 'Besides, it will allow him to be manly without too many disruptions,' she added silently.

* * *

That afternoon, Mithril's surveillance of the Saotome home picked up on the plans to move Ranma into his own place. It just so happened that the apartment Ranma would be moving into was overlooked by the Mithril field HQ. 

It took a bit of manipulation from the Mithril team, including a few greased palms and an application of feminine wiles for Lt. Mao, but it happened easily enough.

Genma, of course, protested about the pledge to unite the schools. "But No-chan..."

"But nothing, dearest" Nodoka held firm. "If you want Ranma to be a true man, then you will have to allow him to make his own decision about who he spends his life with. Besides, if you're correct about Akane Tendo being the one for Ranma, then they will work out their problems."

Genma kept his grumbles to himself and conceded the argument. "Absence does make the heart grow fonder. Shall we get Ranma's things from the Tendos?"

"Yes. I shall inform Akane myself, so don't worry about having to give her the bad news," Nodoka spoke as she prepared for the journey.

* * *

When the Saotomes arrived, the Tendo dojo, Soun did not like the look on his old training partner's face. 

"Soun, it's not good," Genma spoke in the thinner man's ear.

"What do you mean?" Soun asked Genma.

"Nodoka has decided to do something rash."

"What?"

"Soun, could you get Akane? I need to tell her something important," Nodoka stated calmly as she sat down.

"Yes of course. I'll get Kasumi to bring in some tea."

When the younger Tendo girls entered the room, Nodoka sipped her tea. "Akane, I'm afraid that I have some bad news about the engagement."

Nabiki casually leaned in closer as Kasumi poured the tea.

"What is it Auntie Nodoka?" Akane asked, showing some concern for her fiancé.

"I saw your behaviour at the hospital yesterday. I don't think that your engagement to Ranma is what's best for him - you did strike someone who'd just returned from surgery for a wound sustained during your defence."

Akane winced.

Nodoka continued. "I know that you're sorry about it now, but I have decided to annul all of the engagements. If you want to be with my son, then you will have to win his heart the old fashioned way."

This made the other inhabitants of the room sweatdrop, as Nodoka Saotome was known for her somewhat twisted notions of proper behaviour. And with her, the old fashioned way could mean anything from a formal arranged marriage meeting to wearing skimpy clothes and laying legs akimbo on Ranma's bed saying "come and get it, Big Boy."

"Does this mean that Ranma is moving out?" Nabiki asked.

"Yes," Nodoka confirmed as she sipped her tea. "You sound somewhat disappointed, Nabiki."

Nabiki didn't rise to the bait. "Oh, no I'm not interested in Ranma that way. I was more concerned with the bill he and his father ran up."

Nodoka saw what the middle Tendo daughter was doing. "And just what services did you provide, Nabiki? Did you help him with his school work? His martial arts? Or perhaps you took care of his manly needs?"

Nabiki had found out that Nodoka was sharper than Ranma, and so she was able to keep her mask in place much more easily. 'Touché Auntie Nodoka, touché.' "No, it was more along the lines of the grocery bills. I take you know just how much Genma and Ranma can eat?"

Nodoka continued the game with Nabiki. "Ah yes, I should have realised that you're not the type my son would go for."

Nabiki's eye twitched. "Really? And just what is your son's type?"

Nodoka smiled. "I thought you would have found out by now, having spent over a year with him, Nabiki. But anyway, we must be going and I'd like to get Ranma's things. I want to set up Ranma's new apartment before he gets out of the hospital."

"He's moving out on his own?" Kasumi asked.

"Yes, Kasumi. I thought that it would be best for Ranma if he was allowed some space."

* * *

The following morning, Ranma was discharged from the hospital with the blessing of the doctors. The younger members of the nursing staff were a bit less pleased to see the pig tailed martial artist's departure. 

Unsurprisingly, the reason for this eluded Ranma but not Nodoka. She was asked by several women if Ranma would need nursing back to health at home.

Ranma overheard one of these questions and insisted that he would be fine on his own.

On the way to Ranma's new home, the Saotomes made a detour to Furinkan high.

Nodoka walked at her son's side with Genma in tow. The panda was looking particularly brow-beaten by Nodoka.

As they approached Furinkan, one of Nabiki's associates noticed them and signalled her "boss" to the window when the teacher stepped out of the classroom.

"What is it, Megumi" Nabiki was still a little unsettled thanks to the latest Ranma-related events.

"Ranma's here with that panda and a strange woman."

"You have no idea how strange she is, Megumi. I see that Ranma's mother is here to officially inform the school about his change of address."

"That's Ranma's mother?" Megumi turned to the middle Tendo.

"Yep," Nabiki nodded.

In the corner, Tatewaki Kuno was happy. It seemed that his fierce tigress was now freed from the grip of his nemesis, the foul sorcerer. Now, if only he could liberate the pigtailed goddess. Of course, his plan of action was distracted by a naughty fantasy about things that would boggle the mind of the average Japanese citizen.

The rest of the school was awash with gossip concerning their favourite source of entertainment.

First of all, it seemed that Ranma was not invincible, his recent stay in the hospital confirmed that even he could be caught unawares.

Second of all, his mother had pretty much declared him unattached by annulling all of the engagements.

The girls were discussing who had the best chance of pulling Ranma, when Kaname walked up to them.

"Who's this Ranma?" she asked innocently.

The girls turned to the blue haired girl. They were about to roll their eyes in disgust, but then they remembered that Chidori was new to the school.

"Ranma's the guy with the pigtail. Things always happen around him," Shinobu Hayami replied. She then proceeded to tell the Mithril operative about some of the things that had happened to Ranma during his time in Nerima.

* * *

At the apartment the Mithril had leased, Kaname was relaying her findings to Mao. 

Kurz was thinking about challenging Ranma to a friendly sparring match. As a professional soldier, the idea that there was a civilian better at fighting than you would always be a bitter pill to swallow.

Mao was thinking about paying this Nabiki girl a visit for some decent action shots of Ranma.

Chidori was uneasy about the next piece of news she had to give the other members of her team. "I found out that Ranma has several people out for his head."

"Great," Kurz cursed. "Now we've got to watch out for a number of crazies."

"That's not all" Kaname winced. "There are a number of girls out for him."

"That doesn't surprise me. But I've just had a communiqué from the Tuatha de Danaan. We're now going to get some back up," Mao informed her team.

"Who would that be?" Kaname asked, being the new girl in the unit.

Kurz took a guess. "Sagara?"

Mao just smiled and nodded.

"Yes!" Kurz shouted. "The original members of Team Urzu are back in action!"

"What's Sagara like?"

"He's been a soldier since he was eight," Mao answered. "Plus he's one of the finest AS pilots in the world. Generally, he's a lot more professional than Kurz here is."

"Hey!" Webber protested. He relented when he saw the teasing grin on Mao's face. "When's he coming to town?"

"All I know is that he should be here in a few days."

* * *

The fourth day after the shooting incident, Ranma made his way to school under his own power and in good time. 

Little did he know that with the dissolution of all of his engagements, a new menace lurked in the shadows.

At that same time Furinkan's student body broke for lunchtime, this sinister group made their plans to get what they wanted from the young Saotome.

The rest of the afternoon went as normal for Ranma - in an incredibly boring manner. But he was given a bit of leeway because of his injuries (which weren't really bothering him at all) and was allowed to remain in the classroom, even after falling asleep.

* * *

Over the course of the next school week, Ranma had been asked if he was interested in going out on a date by several of the girls in at school. He'd turned them all down, stating that he was still had a lot of changes to deal with at the moment. 

It was Wednesday lunchtime when the conspiracy decided to start the ball rolling on their trophy hunt by forcing a younger student on a panty-raid.

During that evening, a black clad figure stalked towards the balcony of Ranma's apartment, causing the motion sensors to alert the team from Mithril.

"Shit!" Mao cursed. "I'll take the AS, Kurz, you take the roof."

As the team of highly trained professionals moved into action, Ranma stepped into his apartment's small shower, unaware of the commotion around him.

Kaname leapt across the gap between the buildings and abseiled down to Ranma's balcony.

Pinning the suspected assassin/burglar to the floor, Chidori held her hand over the trespasser's mouth.

"Be quiet," she hissed. "I have a gun pointed at your head. Do you understand what that means?"

The prone figure nodded gently.

"Good. Now tell me what you're doing here."

Turning around, Kaname's captive removed its mask, revealing itself to be a girl from Furinkan.

"I'm here to steal Ranma's underwear," she confessed at gunpoint.

"Why do you want his clothes?" Kaname asked, confused by the whole situation.

"Because they're Ranma's."

Seeing that the blue haired girl didn't understand, the girl explained. "They belong to the hottest guy in school! Plus when you think about where these" she held up the pair of boxers she had snagged "touch him, it's like indirectly touching him. You know, just here," she added as she caressed the gusset and fly hole.

"Plus you don't have to worry about psychos coming out of the woodwork if you spend more than FIVE seconds a day looking at him."

"I see," Chidori lied. Alarms were ringing in her head - the "Nut Job Alert" alarms.

It was then that Ranma came out to investigate the commotion on his balcony.

"What's going on here?" he asked, as he finished tying the towel around his waist. Unfortunately in his haste, Ranma had grabbed a hand towel.

"Hehehehehe," the pinned girl drooled as she looked up.

"WHAT" he demanded.

Then the towel fell off.

Looking down at himself, then at the two blushing girls, he left them out in the cold, mumbling something about "pervert stalkers" and a "need to install better locks."

* * *

The next day at school, Ranma was somewhat surprised to see another new student in his class. 

The boy introduced himself as Sousuke Sagara.

Ranma appraised the transfer student; he lacked the fighter's grace of the normal challengers he fought, but there was something about the way he scanned the room that unsettled him a little. It was as if the new student was subtly looking for potential threats and ambush points.

Kaname made eye contact with the new student, gesturing that she wanted to speak with him at lunch.

"What are your hobbies, Sagara-kun?"

"I like fishing and reading" he replied politely. "I find them relaxing."

"That's nice, things can get a bit hectic around here. There's a seat next to Saotome-kun over there," Miss Hinako pointed out the place to Sousuke.

"Thank you sensei."

Miss Hinako was in her adult form because of an earlier altercation between Kaname and Ukyo. The okonomiyaki chef had noticed the way Ranma had cast a glare at the blue-haired girl, who was unable to look at Ranma and asked about what had happened.

As a trained military professional, Kaname was not intimidated by Ukyo. That was until the cross dresser pulled out her oversized baker's peel and cut off a lock of her blue hair.

Not wanting to blow her cover just yet, Sergeant Chidori was economical with the truth. She backed off and mentioned that she saw a girl clad in black trying to break into his apartment.

Ukyo knew that Kaname knew more than she was letting on and pressed for further information.

It was when the Mithril operative confessed to seeing Ranma naked in the aftermath of the attempted break in that a fight looked like starting. That was when the chi draining teacher disciplined them.

Halfway through the lesson, Hinako changed back into her child form. As this was the first time something Sousuke had seen anything like this, he turned to Ranma for answers.

"Zzzzz."

As Sousuke picked himself off the floor, Hinako turned to him and frowned. It was not the most threatening face he had seen.

"You're not causing trouble on your first day are you, Sagara?"

"No, it's just that I wasn't expecting Saotome to be asleep in class," Sousuke explained.

The class, including the child teacher, chuckled at the ignorance of the new guy, having assumed that Ranma was (in) famous across the nation for sleeping in class.

"What is it" Sousuke asked. "Is Saotome one of those people that things happen to?"

Hiroshi and Daisuke were impressed by the new guy's analysis of the Nerima situation. "Yep, that's Saotome."

"Ah."

The bell rang for lunch, awakening Ranma from his strange dream of floating numbers and scientific equations.

"Hmm, feeding time. I wonder what Mom made for me today?" he asked no one in particular.

Taking his lunch outside via the window, the cursed martial artist found a spot under a tree, unwittingly going to a place where Kaname would be able to keep him under observation.

The pigtailed martial artist seemed to disappear from the blue-haired girl's vision when she approached the tree in the yard.

Kaname looked around, unsure of what happened until she felt a tapping on her left shoulder.

"I don't like being followed," a voice ominously informed her.

Jumping around, Kaname fell into a combat stance ready to fend off an attacker.

"Oh, it's you Saotome-kun," she recognised the young man that stood less than two metres in front of her.

"Don't follow me around, Chidori. I don't like being crowded. Not even by cute girls," Ranma warned.

Some of the witnessing students were puzzled by Ranma's apparent change in attitude, but chalked it up to the stress of his crazy life and recent stay in hospital.

"Now that that's sorted, I'll be going," Ranma turned to leave.

"But you're in danger, Ranma-kun," Kaname blurted out.

"From what? People that have some kind of grudge against me?" Ranma asked, his tone was far more cynical than ever before. "Perhaps I have to look out for peeping toms and panty thieves?"

The Mithril agent blushed at the memory for the previous night.

"Yeah, well, whatever."

Sousuke walked up to the quarrelling classmates. "Excuse me, I'm looking for Miss Chidori."

"That's her," Ranma pointed to the embarrassed girl. He moved in to whisper to Sousuke. "Be careful, she's a bit..."

A growl interrupted Ranma's description of the blue haired girl. He turned around to face an unhappy Akane.

"Ranma!"

"What?" came the curt reply.

"I see you're upsetting girls again!" the short haired girl yelled at Ranma.

"You still bothering me?" Ranma asked the enraged girl, a look of disgust clearly visible on his face. He left the stunned students to continue their discussions, his appetite now absent.

* * *

After school, Kaname grumbled and about streak of bad luck that plaguing her latest mission. Sousuke was with her, and had tuned a lot of the repeated gripes out. 

"What's up Kaname?" Mao asked her subordinate.

"You know that Ranma saw me on his balcony last night?"

"Yeah, what about it?"

"The girl thought was trying to break in had a pair of his boxers in her hand when he came out to see what was going on. Now he thinks I'm some kind of pervert," Kaname sighed. "That and I saw him naked."

"That's it?" Mao, being the woman that she was, didn't see what the problem was.

"He's got women crawling out of the woodwork trying to drag him to the altar," Kaname shot back. "I hear stories about warrior women that want to drag him off to China and fiancées from arranged marriages that cemented the deal with dowries that consist of a mere meal. Anybody who shows the slightest bit of interest in him romantically is bound to set him on edge."

"What strange notions of romance you have if they involve theft of underwear, Chidori," Sousuke commented as he cleaned his Glock 26.

Kurz appeared at he doorway with some food from the local convenience store. "Theft of underwear? Just what have you to been up to while I'm off getting food?"

"Nothing, you idiot," Melissa fired off a half hearted put down at the letch of her team. "Now what you got for us?"

"There was a special on canned crab, so I picked up a few tins."

Melissa Mao's face lit up. "Kurz, fire up the stove and I'll break out a cold six-pack."

"Yes ma'am," Kurz saluted.

Sousuke finished reassembling his pistol and stood up. "Lieutenant, Captain Testarossa told me that she was upset that Ranma was injured so soon into the mission. With your permission, I shall go out on patrol to keep watch out for potential assailants in the area."

"Go ahead, Sergeant."

* * *

Ranma was returning from an evening training session with his father. He was a little sceptical about the meddling Kaname Chidori's warning that he was in danger at first, but a few memories came back about people trying to kill him at all hours of the night helped him decide that a little extra training would hurt him. 

Of course an unfortunately timed bucket activated his Jusenkyo curse and turned him into a "her", complete with remodelled plumbing.

As the redheaded girl walked to her apartment, Mao noticed that something was up. Ranma was receiving a female visitor – one that had a key to the front door.

"Who's that?"

"I've never seen her before," Kaname responded to the lieutenant's question. "She's not in any of the intelligence."

"Is she hot?" Kurz asked.

"She's cute," Mao answered. "She's getting in the shower."

"Sweet!" Kurz exclaimed. "Let me see."

"No," Melissa still refused to allow Kurz to leer at the redhead.

The jostling for position at the telescope caused the team to miss the temporary cure for a Jusenkyo curse.

"Stop peeping on her. I'm going over to see what's going on," Kaname volunteered.

* * *

Ranma, now male, stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel. Drying himself off, he put on a clean shirt and threw the dirty one in the laundry. 

The doorbell rang, causing Ranma to consider who would want to see him at this hour.

After checking that he was decent, he opened the door to see Kaname smiled cutely back at him.

"Can I help you?" he asked through the slightly opened the door.

"I wanted to apologise about last night."

"Ok. I forgive you. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm tired." Ranma started to close the door on Kaname.

The blue haired girl was under the impression that Ranma had another reason to go to bed early that evening.

"What happened to the girl that came in here?"

Ranma froze and turned to his visitor. "Why are you worrying about her?"

"It's got something to do with the stalker from yesterday."

"She ain't stalking me. YOU'RE stalking me," Ranma explained.

"But where'd she go to?"

"I ain't telling you that," Ranma dismissed troublesome student. "Go away."

With that, Ranma slammed the door shut in Kaname's face.

* * *

To be continued… 

Thanks go out to the poor soul who is being forced to pre-read this rubbish, Chi Vayne. You should all appreciate his sacrifice.

Again, this is the changes are part of a rewrite suggestion by someone who emailed me. You know who you are.

Any questions, comment or complaints, you should know how to contact me by now.

Laterer.


	4. Chapter 3

Half Metal Panic!

By Lord Raa

Chapter 3

* * *

Disclaim-me-do: Moose bites can be quite nasty, you know.

* * *

Kaname was not too happy about the dismissal she had received at the hands of Ranma. Deciding that her relationship with Ranma was on rocky enough ground, she left the pigtailed martial artist's apartment building and headed back to her base of operations. 

When she returned, Melissa had pinned Kurz to the floor in a painful looking joint lock.

"Care to repeat that again?" she asked the human knot beneath her.

"I said that you're the best small unit commander I could ever wish to server under," he grimaced.

Mao became all smiles. "That's better. What'd you find out, Kaname?"

"Ranma thinks that I'm stalking him," the blue haired girl sighed.

Mao shrugged before reaching for a can of beer. "I can't say I blame him, if a guy was following me like you are him, then I'd call the police."

"You see any trace of that redhead?" Kurz enquired.

"No, that's the strange thing," Kaname mused. She was torn between solving the mystery of the pigtailed girl and trying to keep Ranma from hating her and making her team's task even harder.

"We'll keep our distance for a few days, just casually observing those around him," Mao decided, having read the look on Chidori's face. "Sousuke can take up some of the surveillance by befriending Ranma."

"Agreed," the other members of Urzu team nodded.

* * *

The next morning, Ranma made his way to school via the top of a chain-link fence. He was constantly scanning the area for threats, both the ones he was used to due to his time in Nerima and the newer ones, like his assailant and the troublesome Kaname Chidori. 

His journey was incident free up to the point just outside the gates of Furinkan High School. Then a freak accident with a beer truck happened.

A keg of Asahi "Super Dry" slipped from the delivery truck ramp and bounced off the kerb, striking a set of traffic lights.

Ranma landed at just the wrong time and found himself sprinkled with draft beer. The transgendered teenager grumbled at the injustice of it all.

Luckily for Ranma, it was just his face that was introduced to the salary man's potion of stress relief, so she wouldn't have to change her clothes or reek of booze all day. She just needed to wash her hair and she could do that at school before her lessons started if she hurried.

Ranma-chan entered the gates of the school and found Kuno there, spouting his usual brand of pompous, flowery and, quite frankly, piss-poor verse about how the defeat of the foul sorcerer was nigh.

The student renowned for being a few heroes short of a sentai team saw that his beloved pigtailed girl had arrived at school.

"My dear pigtailed goddess, how I have yearned for you," he gushed as he ran towards her with his arms outstretched.

Ranma was now no longer in a good mood and so felt the need to punch Kuno when the delusional fool copped a feel.

With a power that was unexpected from such a small frame, the redhead hit Kuno with an uppercut that lifted him a good metre off the ground.

"'Tis but a love tap lavished on me by my goddess of affection," Kuno managed to babble before unconsciousness granted Ranma and a few others a reprieve from the inane prattle that the captain of the Furinkan kendo team was famous for.

The petite female martial artist stomped off towards the building, hoping that no one else would bother her.

* * *

Aboard the Tuatha de Danaan, Captain Testarossa was reading the briefing about the research facility that held much of the data on the "Whispered" phenomenon. 

"I want you to strike at night, to minimise casualties," the young captain ordered.

"Yes, ma'am," Lt. Commander Kalinin saluted.

The silver haired prodigy dropped a stack of photos and quickly leapt into action to recover them.

Kalinin saw one of the images, but decided that the best course of action would be to remain as if he saw nothing. It was made a bit harder when he saw another in the series: this one was of a shirtless Ranma, fresh from the shower.

"I'll make the arrangements, Captain," Kalinin saluted again and strode off while he still had respect for the young commander.

* * *

At Furinkan high school, Ranma's newest classmate was being told of the beautiful pigtailed girl that was often seen around there. 

"She is a girl bursting with healthy beauty," Kuno explained, gesturing with his hands where the girl in question was healthy.

Sousuke made a note that the girl's description was similar to that of Ranma's visitor from the night before. "I see."

Looking up, Kuno saw his love wander down the hall. The girl was grumbling about something.

"My Angel of Loveliness!"

"Piss off Kuno."

"I see that the foul sorcerer still has you in his depraved grip!"

"Who is this 'foul sorcerer'?" Sousuke asked, unaware that Kuno was a delusional fool.

"Ranma Saotome," Kuno informed the recent transfer as he rushed to embrace the surly looking girl.

"You know Ranma?" Sousuke asked the redhead.

"Yes," Ranma-chan answered the new student, before smacking Kuno away with a ferocious backhand.

Sagara watched the girl stomp away angrily. "I don't think that she likes you, Kuno-sempai."

Kuno smiled, someone seemed to respect his position, but then frowned when he saw that Sousuke was interested in the pigtailed girl. "Do not think that you deserve her affections, kohai."

"I don't have time to for a girlfriend," Sousuke replied honestly. "My job means that I could get called out on a moment's notice."

"Well see that you leave her alone, I cannot allow any to defile her fragile spirit further," Kuno pompously insisted.

'She's obviously a skilled martial artist, perhaps that's why she's interested in Ranma?' Sousuke pondered.

* * *

After an uneventful afternoon, Ranma walked home via Nerima's shopping district. He was looking at the radishes that were on special when woman walked towards him. 

"You really should consider the firmness of the daikon, Ranma-kun" the brunette pointed out.

Ranma turned to the woman and upon looking at her face, felt a twinge of recollection. "You look familiar. Do I know you?" he asked, not sure of his memory.

"Yes it's me, Kasumi Tendo. How have you been, Ranma-kun?"

Ranma slapped his forehead in embarrassment. "I'm sorry, Kasumi. I've been going through a lot recently, which answers your question. I've got a lot more freedom than before, but I still have to deal with perverts, but hey, what can you do?"

Kasumi didn't know how to respond to that, so she nodded politely.

A van drove past the two a bit too quickly and caused Kasumi to lose her balance.

"You alright?" Ranma asked having leapt into action to stop the woman from falling to the ground.

'I will be if you keep holding me, Ranma-kun,' Kasumi thought as she enjoyed being held in Ranma's strong arms.

Ranma helped Kasumi to her feet, and handed the slightly dazed woman her shopping back.

"Ah," the eldest Tendo daughter winced in pain as she put weight on her ankle. She grabbed on to Ranma as if he were a crutch. "I'm sorry to ask this, Ranma-kun, but could you help me home?"

"Of course," Ranma smiled pleasantly. "After all, you were the only one that was nice to me when I stayed at your place."

Kasumi allowed herself a light blush when Ranma scooped her and her purchases up. The pigtailed young man smiled to reassure his passenger before taking off for the rooftops and heading in the direction of the Tendo dojo.

It only took a few minutes to arrive at the Tendo house. Bounding over the wall, Ranma set Kasumi down in front of the back door. "Here you go madam, safe and sound."

"Why thank you, sir," Kasumi smiled and formally thanked Ranma with a bow.

"What brings you to our neck of the woods, Ranma?" Nabiki asked, appearing from the kitchen.

"I was helping Kasumi home after she hurt her ankle. I'll be leaving now, no sense in getting further into your debt," Ranma said bitterly.

Another female figure approached the impromptu gathering, though this one was more muscular.

"Or risking injury," he added, departing as quickly as he arrived.

Nabiki maintained her mask of indifference, but could feel Kasumi's disapproval before it was directed towards her other sister.

"What are you looking at me like that for?" Akane asked. Not having seen Ranma, she was puzzled by what was going on.

"Nothing, Akane," Kasumi replied, though her voice lacked the usual sweetness.

* * *

Ranma decided that he had enough food back home, and made his way to his apartment. He was a little surprised to see his mother standing in the lobby of his building. 

"Hello Ranma," Nodoka greeted her son.

"Hi Mom. Don't take this the wrong way, but why are you here?"

"I came to talk to you about the upcoming school trip to Okinawa."

Ranma blinked. "There's a school trip planned?"

Nodoka's frown was well hidden from the young man in front of her as he led her into his apartment.

"The faculty want to combine this trip to cover both Japanese and natural history. There are some interesting animals in that region and a temple that has remained relatively unscathed since it was built in the 10th century," Mrs. Saotome explained.

Ranma hummed, feigning some interest as he put the kettle on for some tea.

"Apparently the monks there also developed a fighting style that looked quite interesting from what I saw."

Now Nodoka had Ranma's attention. "Fighting style?"

"I'm told that it takes involves some kind of complex motions that make them look like a mass of writhing snakes," Nodoka told her son what she had heard as he returned with the tea paraphernalia.

For no apparent reason, Ranma rubbed his ankles, as if in memory of a past experience.

"Yes, that would make you harder to hit in a fight. But in order for it to be truly effective, you'd need to combine it with pin-point accuracy and relentless strikes to vulnerable areas. So is my class going on this trip?"

"Yes son. I want you to go along and enjoy yourself with your school friends."

"But what about the cost?" Ranma asked. He didn't realise that he'd picked up a few things from Nabiki during his stay at the Tendo's.

"Don't worry, I can afford to pay for you to go, Ranma."

"Thanks Mom. When is the trip?"

"Next week. Is that going to be a problem?"

"No. It's just that it's the first I heard about a school trip," Ranma answered.

"Actually, they planned this several months ago. Perhaps you missed their announcements."

Ranma nodded, though he felt like a big chunk of his life was missing or being kept from him.

"It'll do you some good to get away from Nerima, Ranma. You never know, you might meet a nice girl. I saw a very pretty one near here, you know," Nodoka pointed out.

Ranma managed to avoid rolling his eyes at his mother's seemingly endless ploys to match him up with "a nice girl or two".

* * *

At the Tendo house, and while Akane was practicing in the dojo, Nabiki was questioning Kasumi about Ranma's visit. 

"So, why was Ranma here earlier?"

"He was helping me home with the shopping after I hurt my ankle."

Nabiki nodded as that fit in with Ranma's known behaviour. "Why'd he take off like that?"

"I think you know, Nabiki," Kasumi snorted, albeit in a dignified fashion. "He's slowly getting his memory back. And not all of his time spent here was pleasant."

Nabiki nodded in an attempt to keep the peace, but mentally kicked herself for not noticing that her elder sister was developing a crush on Ranma.

* * *

The next day, the final attendance lists for the school trip to Okinawa was posted. It was a major shock for the student population to see the name Ranma Saotome on it. 

At recess, the boy in question was asked by some of his class if he had chosen a travelling companion for the expedition.

"I ain't given it that much thought," Ranma confessed, rubbing the back of his head.

Elsewhere in the schoolyard, two of the Fiancée Brigade were discussing the situation.

Akane Tendo was a little upset, having been told that she couldn't go on the trip several times by both Nabiki and her father. "Nabiki said that Ranma couldn't afford to go and we weren't going to pay his way. Daddy wanted us to stay together to help our relationship."

Ukyo Kuonji's otherwise cute features developed a nasty twitch around the left eye. She too was not going on the school trip to Okinawa. "I passed on this trip to be close to Ranchan."

Kuno was quite happy about this latest development, as he realised that he'd have a good chance to "ensure that the spell that held the fierce tigress Akane Tendo captive to the degenerate whims of a foul and perverted sorcerer was truly broken".

Unfortunately, Ukyo heard this and took offence.

She stomped over to the Captain of the kendo club and smacked him repeatedly on the head with her baker's peel, her attack stunning Kuno into silence.

"Don't say things like that about Ranchan," the chef threatened the man shaped heap on the ground.

"I see that he has ensorcelled the fair maiden of okonomiyaki," Kuno burbled.

Ukyo turned away in disgust at the idiocy of Kuno and visibly shuddered. 'Gross, I think that Kuno likes me.'

* * *

Elsewhere in Tokyo, a scarred man looked at the surveillance photos he had taken earlier in the day. 

"This kid'll be difficult to take down," he commented as he examined the shots of the target training.

His satellite phone rang, interrupting his preliminary analysis.

"Yes?"

>Gauron, our research facility was hit an hour ago by cruise missiles. We need a copy of the Whispered data you backed up for insurance.>

"I see. Well that means I need to postpone the acquisition of the target. Not that it will be easy since your team bungled the last attempt." Gauron hinted that he might be after some more money.

>We did not anticipate him being that skilled. The voice on the other end of the line was becoming agitated.>

"I'm going to have to change my plans because of this. I'll pick him up after the school trip instead of before. I'll get the data to you when I can."

Gauron switched the phone off and picked up the photos and a cup of coffee.

"We shall see how much cash you net me, Mister Ranma Saotome."

* * *

To be continued… 

I thought that this was a good place to leave this chapter.

I also enjoy hitting people with sticks.

This chapter was pre-read by Chi Vayne, who pointed out silly errors that I missed.

If you want to complain/write fawning praise about the story, then leave a review or send me an email:

Lordraa(at)digitalpimp(dot)co(dot)uk should get you a response before doomsday.

I know that the chapter was rubbish, so here is some omake to make up for forcing you to read this tosh.

The sound of hoof beats 'cross the glade.  
Good folk, lock up your son/daughter.  
Beware the deadly flashing blade,  
Unless you want to end up shorter.

Blue Thunder, Blue Thunder. He wields a sword of wood.  
Blue Thunder, Blue Thunder. His brain is not that good.

Hack. His foe has some gall.  
Slash. His loves are delicate petals.  
His head is harder than that wall.  
The redhead is reaching for that kettle.

Blue Thunder, Blue Thunder. With many a cunning plan.  
Blue Thunder, Blue Thunder. You're lusting after a man!

Bonus points for guessing the source inspiration for this, but no prizes at this time.

You'll get over it, I have.

Until the next time.


	5. Chapter 4

Half Metal Panic!

By Lord Raa

Chapter 4

* * *

Disclaim-me-do: For your final section in this examination, discuss the merits and flaws in the logic of the following statement: "Nothing delivers an ass whuppin' like a giant robot."

* * *

Previously on Half Metal Panic:

"We shall see how much cash you net me, Mister Ranma Saotome."

And now time for some…something. I don't know anymore. Stop picking on me.

* * *

Ranma Saotome had managed to raise his spirits after the lunchtime debacle with an emphatic win for his softball team in PE, though the girls' team managed to put up a good fight thanks to the efforts of the three athletically inclined girls from his class.

He frowned when the memories around that trio surfaced. Ukyo kept trying to get him to go out with her, bringing up events from his childhood that he couldn't remember clearly. She failed to understand why he still needed space.

He was also annoyed with the new girl in his class, Kaname. It was seemed that everywhere he went, she was not far behind.

Plus when he told her not to stalk him, Akane Tendo appeared from nowhere and had started to give him grief for upsetting the new girl.

"Stupid tomboy," he grumbled loudly as he turned the corner.

He just knew that something else was going to happen to him soon.

"I heard that, you villainous cretin!"

There it was: the Blue Blunder had taken it upon himself to defend the good name of Akane Tendo from Saotome's malign slander.

"What do you want now?" Ranma demanded through gritted teeth.

"I heard your slights on the femininity of the fair and beauteous Akane Tendo!" Kuno bellowed as he drew a pair of bokken. "This time you shall face the wrath of my new Two Sword Technique!"

The wannabe swordsman charged towards Ranma, intent on causing serious bodily harm. The plan, so brilliantly formed in Kuno's mind, was to trap Saotome between two horizontal slashes.

As Kuno closed, Ranma saw his blue haired stalker leap in front of the running kendoist. He blinked as the whole scene unfolded before him.

"Stop!"

Kuno, unable to stop moving forward, dropped his practice swords and barrelled into the girl.

"Oof!" Kaname gasped as the wind was knocked out of her. She was too stunned to see where Kuno's head was resting.

Ranma looked at the two tangled bodies in front of him and shook his head.

Kaname lowered her head, screamed "Pervert!" and knocked Kuno back a good metre by the force of her right hook.

"And people complain about MY womanising!" Ranma grumbled. "What do ya think you're doing?"

"Me?"

"No, the fire extinguisher" was the reply.

Kaname was beginning to think that Ranma was a few rounds short of a clip with that statement.

"Come on out, Tsubasa. I know you're hiding there, trying to look up her skirt!"

"Who?" Kaname asked, scanning the corridor for other people.

Ranma strode to red extinguisher and easily lifted it up. After he shook it, a full set of limbs and a head appeared.

"Anything to say for yourself?"

"Err…" the cosplay obsessed boy stammered. "I didn't mean to stare at your new girlfriend, Ranma."

Kaname blushed lightly at the inference, while Ranma roughly shook the boy again.

"She is not my girlfriend, I don't want nothing to do with her."

"What, am I not good enough for you?" Kaname demanded angrily.

"I ain't interested in no interfering stalker," Ranma said as he glared at the girl on the floor. He turned, dropped Tsubasa and left, his increasingly bad mood soured further.

* * *

Outside Furinkan, Ranma saw Sagara standing in front of a pile of unconscious male students.

"What ya looking at?"

Sousuke turned to face the pigtailed martial artist. "These boys were knocked out by her," he replied, pointing at a slightly glowing girl.

"Her? Oh, that's just great," Ranma sighed.

"Why is she glowing?" Sousuke asked. This was unlike anything he'd seen before.

"That's just her rage induced battle aura. Just ignore her, and we should be fine," Ranma shrugged,

"Battle aura?" Sousuke repeated. "Is that a martial arts technique?"

"Yep. You know much about the Art?" Ranma asked, hoping to have found a new sparring partner.

'According to Chidori's intelligence, this girl has tried to hurt Saotome. I should get him away from her,' Sousuke reasoned. "I know some self defence, perhaps you can teach me something more advanced from your style? I heard it's called Anything Goes."

Ranma smiled and leapt to the roof of the nearby store. "If you can keep up with me, then I'll train you."

Sousuke nodded, thankful that he had Ranma's physical nature to relate to, rather than bluff his way through popular culture. The one time he'd had to do that had embarrassed him so much that Melissa still teased him about it to this day.

"Agreed."

* * *

After a good half hour of roof hopping, Ranma finally landed in the park near his house. He had changed direction several times to make the chase interesting and as a test for Sagara.

A moment later, a sweaty, and slightly winded, Sousuke dropped a few metres from Ranma.

"You didn't drop that far behind," said an impressed Ranma.

"Ready to begin the training when you are, Sensei," Sousuke said as he took up a defensive stance.

Ranma smiled, for he could see that Sagara was no rank amateur. The military boy's posture was one that would allow him to react to almost anything, making it a lot like the advanced ones from the Anything Goes schools.

Deciding that he needn't show off too much, Ranma matched his opponent's stance perfectly.

"Traditionally, the challenger moves first, but I never was big on tradition," Ranma said as he prepared to strike. "Ready?"

"Yes."

"Good."

Ranma ran towards the boy. It looked like he was trying to get a jab into the left side of Sousuke's ribs. Sousuke reacted accordingly and Ranma knocked him off his feet with a sweeping kick that came from nowhere.

Ranma followed up with an elbow drop, which Sagara saw and deftly avoided with a roll to his right.

Jumping up, Sousuke charged in with fists swinging. He was taken by surprise when he found that Ranma had trapped one with his left hand and the other between his legs. Reacting without thinking, Sagara thrust a knee into Saotome's chest, though it didn't connect as well as it could have.

Ranma grinned. This was the most fun he'd had in a while.

Releasing the Mithril agent, Ranma leapt back and went into a Thai boxing stance.

"I thought you studied kempo," Sousuke pondered aloud.

"I studied pretty much everything on my travels. Why do you think it's called Anything Goes?" Ranma replied with a smirk before rushing towards his sparring partner.

Sousuke knew that Ranma was fast, but didn't know just how fast a human could move until his kidneys were pounded by vicious kicks. He lashed out with a right jab to get himself some breathing room.

When it failed to connect, he tried again and again until Ranma dropped to the floor with an axe kick to the head.

The next thing Sousuke knew was that Ranma was standing over him with an outstretched hand.

"Not bad, Sagara. You managed to tag me, not very hard, but that's than Kuno's done for a while."

Sousuke accepted Ranma's hand and thanked him. "I'm trying to place your fighting style. I recognise some elements of it, like the kickboxing, but there're many others in there."

Ranma swelled with pride at the recognition of his skills. "Like I said in the fight, it's called Anything Goes for a reason. It incorporates techniques from all over Asia. This was just Indiscriminate Grappling, or the basics, as Pops called it. The advanced techniques of Anything Goes involve things that'd blow you away."

"Like what?" Sousuke asked, intrigued as to what someone of Ranma's calibre would consider an advanced manoeuvre.

"Something like this." Ranma held out his right hand and held a glowing ball.

Sousuke looked suitably impressed. "What is that?"

"Chi."

"As in the body's energy flows?"

"Yep," Ranma replied before reabsorbing the energy into his body.

Sousuke didn't like where this was going – it messed with his view of the world. "But isn't all that ancient mysticism supposed to be just mumbo jumbo?"

Ranma looked at the dusty boy, before smirking. "Try this: Mouko Takabisha!"

The ball of life energy shot from Ranma's cupped hands and slammed into Sousuke, knocking the teenaged mercenary down to the ground.

"Does that feel like mumbo jumbo to you?"

"No," Sousuke coughed.

"Well, there's some good news," Ranma said as he helped Sousuke up again.

"What's that?" Sousuke asked as he dusted himself off.

"You're not bad. With a bit of training, you could probably get to that kind of level," Ranma answered honestly.

Sagara looked at Ranma. "Really?"

"Yep. But we need to break you of your habit of holding back too much," Ranma said as he stretched.

Before Sousuke could ask "What makes you say that I'm holding back?" his communicator bleeped.

"Excuse me for a moment. Sagara here."

Where are you+ Mao asked.

"I'm learning Anything Goes with Ranma. What's up?"

Our orders have changed. I'll update you when you return.+

"I see. I'll make my way back soon. Sagara out."

"What was that about?" Ranma asked. "I've never seen a phone like that before."

"I've been assigned to protect you," Sousuke answered.

Ranma looked at Sousuke as if he were an idiot. "From who?"

"There are people that are interested in you."

"I know: Ukyo, Shampoo, Kodachi and that stalker, Chidori," Ranma replied, counting the names off with his fingers.

"I don't think that Chidori is stalking you, Saotome," Sousuke tried to deflect suspicion from his team-mate. "But I was not referring to those girls."

Ranma looked at his first student. "What do you mean?"

"You are not a normal teenager, Saotome."

"I know."

"I mean that you've got some special abilities," Sousuke tried to clarify his point.

"You mean in addition to bein' able to hit you with my chi?" Ranma asked with a hint of humour in his voice.

"Yes. In fact we suspect you to be a test subject from the 'Whispered' project," Sousuke explained.

"And what's this 'Whispered' thing?" Ranma asked, mildly intrigued.

"I don't have all the details," Sousuke admitted, "but I'm told that the project involves advanced technologies."

"Like what?"

"Like Arm Slaves."

"Armed Slaves?" Ranma repeated. "I don't want anything to do with slaves."

"Arm Slaves. They are the next generation of military vehicle, they allow for greater firepower to be deployed quickly."

"Well, I'm sure that that means something to you, but I ain't never been part of a project like that," Ranma dismissed the boy in front of him.

Sousuke could see that Ranma was sceptical about the whole story, but wanted to keep the pigtailed martial artist on friendly terms.

"So then, how could you tell that I was holding back in our match?"

"You only tagged me you reacted on instinct," Ranma smiled, he was back on familiar territory. "You knew that I was skilled, so I figure that you were trying to get an idea of just how good I am."

Sousuke replayed the fight in his mind and found Ranma's assessment to be accurate. "Yes, that makes sense; you can't just deploy artillery without seeing what you're up against."

"You'll do well at Anything Goes," Ranma nodded. "If you can keep this up."

"Mission accepted," Sousuke saluted his new combat instructor.

"Right then," Ranma's face became serious, "your first lesson, is to show me what you're made of. You against me, full out unarmed combat, no death blows."

"Agreed," Sousuke nodded as he fell into his favoured stance.

Ranma took an advanced Wing Chun stance. "I've got some bad news for you."

"What's that?" Sousuke asked, slowly circling Ranma.

"I'm barely warmed up. Ready?"

"When you are."

As the combat obsessed teenagers charged each other, Ranma opted to show off the aerial aspects of his school and nearly took Sousuke's head clean off with the flying kick.

Sousuke neatly sidestepped countered with a rabbit punch to the kidneys, but somehow Ranma managed to dodge the blow in midair. Seeing this, Sousuke followed up with a roundhouse kick, which only struck a glancing hit on Ranma's arm.

Ranma didn't react to the contact, merely opening up with a barrage of rapid punches that stopped any normal opponent from getting a good hit in.

'Damn,' Sousuke thought, 'he's a lot better than the Intel said.'

Sousuke stepped in ignoring the hits he took and gave Ranma an uppercut that the pigtailed boy didn't expect.

Ranma stepped back and spat some blood out of his mouth. "Not bad, Sagara. Not bad at all."

Sousuke tilted his head slightly in acknowledgment of the praise, but remained silent as he considered his next move. When his plan was formed, he grabbed Ranma by the shirt and tried to throw him to the floor and get him in a joint lock.

As Ranma was being lifted through the air, he twisted and flicked a foot out, striking the mercenary in the jaw.

Sousuke staggered back in surprise and was unable to keep hold of Ranma, who had already dropped to the floor in a ready stance.

"I see what you're trying to do. Not a bad plan of action, but," Ranma paused in his assessment of the scarred boy's idea, "You're dealing with someone who's been doing this for a long time."

Ranma blurred and a winded Sagara lay on the ground for a moment, trying to see just how the advanced throw could incorporate the elements of judo, kickboxing and kempo that it seemed to.

"You're a weapon user," Ranma commented. "Short bladed weapon, knife or dagger, am I right?"

"I have drilled with knives as part of my close quarters training," Sousuke acknowledged. "I have also trained with bayonets."

"Where did you do that?" Ranma asked as he helped the exhausted boy up.

Bayonets were an unusual weapon to train with for most martial arts styles that he knew of.

"It was part of my basic training," Sousuke explained as he rubbed his shoulder. "I am a soldier of Mithril."

Ranma didn't expect that response. "And they are?"

"Are you familiar with Gatchaman?"

"Yeah, I remember that. So you fly around in a bird shaped plane?" Ranma asked with a smile.

"No, but I go all over the world stopping terrorists and helping keep wars from breaking out," Sousuke answered.

"Now I know what I have to work with. Meet me here tomorrow at 4.45. Bring something to drink and a towel."

"Where are we?" Sousuke asked. "I don't know Nerima that well."

"We're in a park behind Furinkan High. It makes sense for us to practice here," Ranma said.

"I am experienced at navigating around urban areas," Sousuke replied at the perceived slight against direction-finding skills.

Ranma waved his hands in a placating manner. "Hey, I know a guy that took four days to find an empty lot five hundred metres from his house."

"I find that hard to believe," scoffed Sousuke.

"Just like you find it hard to believe that someone can hit you with their chi, right?" Ranma teased his student.

"I've seen shit that'd turn you white," he added before leaving for his new apartment.

* * *

To be continued…

This chapter was pre-read by Chi Vayne, who could have spent the time doing something fun instead.

"Why were this and the previous chapter so short?" and "Why the bloody hell did it take you so long to write a mediocre chapter?" you all ask.

Well, the answer is Unicron.

No, not really. I'm just not terribly motivated at the moment. I don't know what it is: I mean, I now have a proper job with sensible hours and free weekends, but something just makes me tired these days. Perhaps I'm getting old. What this means is that you shouldn't expect my previous rate of updates any time soon.

I'm sure that you're all gutted about that.

Until the next time.

Laterer.


	6. Chapter 5

Half Metal Panic!

By Lord Raa

Chapter 5

* * *

Disclaim-me-do: Ranma ½: not mine. Full Metal Panic: not mine. Fanservice Frog: MINE!

* * *

Previously on Half Metal Panic: "No, the fire extinguisher."

* * *

Upon his return to base, Sousuke removed his shoes and jacket. He saw that Melissa and Kaname were looking at a printout and asked, "Lieutenant, what're our new orders?" 

"Oh hi, Sousuke. What happened to you? You looked a bit tired."

"I was being taught my first lesson in Anything Goes by Saotome," Sousuke replied before taking a drink of water.

"What? Why?" Kaname asked, standing up from her seat.

"Intel mentioned that he was a combat specialist, so I took the opportunity to observe Saotome in a fight," Sousuke admitted. "We talked afterwards, and he is going to train me in the Anything Goes style."

"You and your combat training, Sagara," Mao shook her head. "Anyway, our mission is over. It seems that an important facility was knocked out a few days ago, so now we don't have to watch over Saotome."

"Oh," was all Kaname could say on the matter. "What about the trip to Okinawa?"

"Well, there's some good news about that: the Captain has decided that you deserve some R and R and since the trip has been paid for, you get to go," Mao said with more than a hint of envy in her voice.

* * *

Elsewhere in Tokyo, a certain female martial artist was complaining about a certain someone to her sister. 

"That baka!"

CRACK, went a breezeblock, neatly splitting in two.

"I mean, he keeps insulting that new girl in school, not to mention he keeps having a go at me when I stick up for her."

CRACK, went the next block in line.

Before Akane could grumble more about the idiotic Saotome, Nabiki interrupted the ranting with a sigh. "Akane, did it occur to you that Ranma needs some space?"

"Space? What that idiot needs is a good smack round the head to beat some manners into him!" Akane huffed angrily. "It's the only way he'll learn."

"Akane, have you heard the term 'carrot and stick'?" Nabiki asked with a forced niceness in her voice.

"What do you mean?" Akane asked, not getting the metaphor.

"Well, when you're training an animal, let's say a horse for the sake of this example, there're two methods that people use: the carrot and the stick," Nabiki explained. "Are you with me so far?"

"Yes," Akane nodded, puzzled as to where this was going.

"Well, Ranma has been trained all his life with the stick method: 'do this or I'll beat you' rather than the 'do this and I'll give you the carrot' approach."

"Yeah, I know, I have seen his training methods," Akane said in a "like, duh" voice.

Nabiki had to take a few breaths to calm down. "Right, so maybe he's tired of getting the stick and not the carrot?"

Realisation slowly dawned across Akane's face. "Shit."

"Exactly," Nabiki said, helping her distraught sister sit down on the dojo steps.

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" Akane asked after thinking for a moment.

That question put Nabiki in a very bad position. As she saw it, she had two options: admit that she was playing with the Saotome boy like a puppet her own amusement, or she pretended that it just recently occurred to her, making her look as stupid as almost everybody made Ranma out to be. Neither of those sounded particularly appealing.

"Well?" Akane asked.

"The thing is…" Nabiki started, but was interrupted by Kasumi.

"Dinner will be ready in five minutes," the oldest Tendo offspring called out.

"You better get cleaned up, Akane, you know how Kasumi is about personal hygiene," Nabiki did her best to deflect the angry girl's attention.

"Yeah."

* * *

Back in the Tendo kitchen, Kasumi smiled as she averted disaster, if only for the moment.

'I don't know what Nabiki is going to say to Akane if she brings this up again at dinner,' the brunette mused as she prepared the dishes for the evening meal.

* * *

At the Nekohanten, Shampoo was not feeling too happy with the situation surrounding Ranma's engagements. 'What is Great-grandmother thinking?' 

Nodoka's invalidation of her Kiss of Marriage was something that Shampoo thought that Cologne would have argued over, but for some reason the aged and wise elder agreed to the Saotome matriarch's decision.

In a corner of the Chinese restaurant, a surly looking duck observed the disheartened girl in front of it.

'I'll make sure that Saotome pays for toying with my beloved's feelings like that,' Mousse decided, before being put away in a cage by one of the oldest members of the Nerima community.

Seeing her heir brooding at the counter, Cologne hopped over to the purple haired girl.

"What's the matter, Shampoo?"

"I thinking about Airen," the normally bubbly girl answered.

"You're wondering why I agreed to Mrs. Saotome's request that Ranma is free to chose his mate?"

"Yes," Shampoo answered, looking at the wrinkly face for signs that there was a greater plan in motion.

"Well, we discussed it like reasonable adults, a first for Nerima, or so it seems," the elder wryly commented. "We decided that it would put everybody on an equal footing, with no advantage being given to the Tendos of the Kuonji girl with their histories."

Shampoo just silently nodded, waiting for her great-grandmother to explain the rest of the plan.

Cologne sighed when her successor failed to see what weapons they had in their arsenal. "Remember that Ranma likes to learn martial arts techniques and he does enjoy his food."

"Aiyah!" Shampoo exclaimed, jumping up. "We now have plan to win Ranma!"

"Yes, Shampoo."

* * *

Ranma was in a pleasant mood when he returned to his apartment. So good in fact, he opted to put his culinary skills to good use, rather than eat instant ramen. 

His stir fry was cooking nicely, the aroma from the spiced meat and vegetables filling the kitchen, and escaping from the open window, when there was a knock on his door.

Frowning, Ranma removed his dinner from the heat and went to see who was visiting him at feeding time.

Looking through the spy-hole, he saw that it was his mother and quickly opened the door and let her in.

"Hi Mom, what brings you here?"

"I was just in the neighbourhood, so I thought I'd pop by," Nodoka answered.

"Come in, I'm making dinner," Ranma gestured to the living area. "Are you hungry?"

"I think that I can test my manly son's cooking," Nodoka said with a proud smile.

Ranma smiled back before setting the table for dinner.

As the pair ate, Nodoka asked how Ranma's day went.

"Great, I start teaching my first student tomorrow after school," Ranma said with a smile.

"Is your student a beginner?"

"No, he's got talent and some actual experience to back it up. It should be a challenge to bring out his full potential."

"That's nice dear," Nodoka nodded. "Oh, I've got something for you."

Nodoka handed her son a paper bag. "I thought that this might come in handy at when you're out and about."

* * *

Back at Urzu team's base of operations, Kaname finally got around to asking the question that had been puzzling her for a while now. 

"Sousuke," she started as she cleared the table of the dishes.

"Yes, Chidori?"

"First off, call me Kaname. Second, why weren't you assigned to this mission in the beginning?"

"I was on another mission on the Captain's orders. I can't tell you much about it, but I was using new Arm Slave models," Sousuke answered. "Please do not ask for any details."

"Ok. So who are you going to travel with to Okinawa?" Kaname asked, changing the subject.

"I have not yet made that decision."

"Well, I was thinking that maybe one of us should sit next to Saotome," Kaname suggested. "Or at least in an adjacent seat."

"That would be prudent," Sousuke agreed. "I shall ask him if he has made his decision tomorrow."

* * *

After dinner at the Tendos, Nabiki asked her older sister about what she should say about her treatment of Ranma to Akane. 

"You should have been nicer to him," admonished Kasumi. "That way you wouldn't be in this position. Fancy manipulating him by telling him that you love him."

"You're one to talk, Kasumi. 'Oh, this is Ranma's girlfriend from China'. 'Oh, how can you find these cute cats scary, Ranma-kun? Let me see how many I can hang on him before he falls over?'" Nabiki countered snidely.

Kasumi winced as she blushed at the memory of her actions.

"None of us here are saints, Kasumi. Least of all me. But I want to make things right. I don't want to hurt Akane anymore than she has been over the last year and a bit," Nabiki said with a sigh before reaching for a chocolate biscuit. "So what do we do?"

"Apologise," Kasumi suggested cryptically.

"To who? To Ranma?"

"Yes. And to Akane. We did push an unwanted suitor onto her, knowing full well that we'd be able to handle it better," Kasumi explained. "Mother would be ashamed of us, treating Ranma like an old ox. There to serve us and nothing more."

Nabiki, for the first time in a long while, had a look of shame on her face.

"Mother would be upset, wouldn't she?" the middle sister asked, her eyes nearly tearing up.

"Come here," Kasumi said with her arms outstretched.

"Thanks, nee-chan," Nabiki hugged her sister.

After a moment, the longer haired girl broke the silence. "Now let's see Akane, shall we?"

* * *

Akane sat at her desk, idly tapping her pen on her chemistry textbook, her mind wandering away from the flow of electrons as described in the mnemonic OIL RIG and towards what her sister had said about Ranma's training methods. 

The first knock on her door failed to rouse her from her introspection. The second knock, however was much louder.

"Who is it?"

"Akane, we need to talk," Kasumi said through the door.

Akane opened her door and was surprised to both of her sisters standing that there. She half-heartedly waved her siblings in.

"So then, what did you want to talk to me about?"

Nabiki said nothing until she was nudged by Kasumi. "We wanted to apologise to you."

"For what?" Akane asked, suspicious of Nabiki's motives.

"For forcing the engagement onto you," Kasumi finished.

Akane remained silent before sitting down on her chair. "Why're you doing this now?"

"I was thinking about Ranma," Nabiki admitted. "About how we all treated him."

"And?" Akane gestured for her sister to get to the point.

"And we reacted hastily leaving you to deal with the engagement. We should have stuck together as a family and sorted it out properly. We're very sorry, Akane," Nabiki said with a suitable look of shame on her face.

"Well, apologising doesn't exactly help me here, now does it?" Akane said in a slightly bitter tone.

"You're right," Kasumi nodded. "There's nothing we can do about it right now, only promise that we act more as a family."

Akane sighed when she realised that her oldest sister was right. "You're right. I'll forgive you, if you can forgive me."

"Deal," Nabiki quickly answered, not wanting anyone to change their minds.

* * *

The next morning, Ranma walked to school via a number of chain link fences. In his bag was a towel and water bottle, in addition to his new thermos that his mother had given him. 

He hoped he wouldn't need that last item today, but wasn't holding his breath.

Nearing the school gates, he hopped off the fence, lightly landing on the balls of his feet and waved to his new friend, Sousuke.

"Saotome," the mercenary waved back.

"You ready for your first lesson later?" the pigtailed martial artist asked with a smirk.

Sousuke saluted. "Ready to learn, Saotome-sensei."

Ranma waved off the formal term of address. "Just call me Ranma: all that fancy name stuff makes me feel a bit weird."

"And that is proof of your low-born nature!" a voice called out from behind the recently transferred student.

"Kuno," Ranma rolled his eyes. "No what can I do for the Blue Thunder Pants of Furinkan High?"

"Simple: die!" Kuno suggested as he charged Ranma with a bokken in position.

Sousuke was about to interfere, when he saw Ranma smile at him.

Timing his move to perfection, Ranma rushed past Kuno and grabbed the older boy by the collar.

"What manner of foolishness is th-URK!" Kuno was cut off in mid ramble as he was swung around by Ranma into the outside wall of the school face first.

"Really, I thought that it would have sunk in by now, Kuno," Ranma taunted. "You are not invincible. No-one is."

"Lies!" Kuno burbled from the concrete.

"No, you look pretty defeated to me," Kaname said as she walked past the boys.

"My Blue Haired Lovely! Have you come to see me eliminate the foetid stain on our hallowed school's record?" Kuno asked, recovering quickly when there was a pretty girl around to see his manliness.

"What? Are you going to commit seppuku, Kuno?" Ranma asked with a smile that would have made Nabiki proud.

The subsequent silence was deafening.

"You dare say such things to me?" Kuno bellowed at a bored looking Ranma.

Ranma stepped into Kuno's personal space. "He who dares wins."

Sousuke smiled at use of a familiar motto.

Kuno's blood pressure skyrocketed, causing several veins to bulge on his forehead and neck.

"Are we going to start this before or after school?" Ranma asked, staring the older boy down. "I've got classes, you know."

"The sooner you are defeated the better!" Kuno countered.

Kaname stepped up to Sousuke. "This is your new teacher?"

"Affirmative. He is quite skilled."

"But he's so arrogant and rude," Kaname commented. She hoped that Sousuke was not going to pick up any of those behavioural traits. It was going to make future operations with the Sergeant more trouble.

"You've got that right," a female voice concurred from behind them.

"And you are?" Sousuke asked the short haired girl.

"I'm Nabiki Tendo. Are you really Ranma's student?"

"Yes. I formally begin my training this afternoon."

Nabiki's face remained neutral. 'He's been here for only a few days and already he's managed to get Ranma to agree to train him. How did he manage that?'

The trio turned their attention back to the staring contest in front of them.

"I shall defeat you, Saotome," Kuno growled.

"You've said that before, Tate-baka," Ranma yawned in an exaggerated fashion. "Unless you've got a real sword or a number of new attacks, I suggest you leave me alone before I get angry."

Kuno, now far beyond mere mortal definitions of rage, swung his bokken into Ranma.

Ranma easily caught the wooden blade. "I'm bored with this, Kuno. I suggest that you go on a training mission before you get hurt. Again."

"I will never take suggestions from you!" the captain of the kendo team yelled in his nemesis's face.

"Not even about personal hygiene?" Ranma asked innocently.

"SILENCE!" Kuno roared.

"And that is why the girls don't like you Kuno, your breath reeks."

The crowd laughed at the tall boy's misfortune.

"YAARGH!" Kuno screamed as he lashed out with a headbutt that failed to connect.

Ranma dodged his head to the side, dropped the training sword and moved behind Kuno in the blink of an eye.

A loud ripping noise clued the audience into the fact that Ranma had down something painful to the school moron.

Ranma stepped around to face his opponent. "You should see the look on your face, Kuno. It's an absolute picture."

Kuno remained silent at the disrespectful conduct of the biggest thorn in his side. Some thought it was a testament to Kuno's delusion that he was able to maintain a level of stoicism that made all other samurai look like they were made of butter.

Others that had a better vantage point were able to see that it was because of the atomic wedgie he received.

Then the whispers came from the crowd.

"Are those Lone Wolf and Cub boxers?"

"I can't decide if that's cool or sad."

"I think it's sad."

"It could be worse."

"True, he could be like that old pervert that steals underwear."

Ranma turned to his student. "I think we're done here, don't you?"

Sousuke nodded.

* * *

Ranma's first lesson was Classical Japanese Literature. Unsurprisingly, the Saotome heir was having difficulty staying awake. 

Sousuke was also having problems with the subject matter, though his were different.

"Sensei, I do not understand the meaning behind this passage," the mercenary said, raising his hand.

"Well," the teacher started.

The brown haired teacher was interrupted by a boy in a white robe bursting into his classroom.

"I'll make you pay for hurting Shampoo's feelings!" the newcomer screamed.

"Eh?" Ranma asked, half asleep. "I did what to who now?"

"Shampoo is upset and it's all your fault!"

"How do you work that one out?" Ranma asked around a yawn.

"Simple – everything is your fault!" the myopic warrior shouted.

Mousse, not content with just disrupting the lesson with his nonsensical outburst, threw half a dozen knives at what he thought to be Ranma's direction.

Ranma caught them, looking unimpressed as he placed them on his desk. "Is that all you got, Quackers?"

Before Mousse could reply, he felt something cold and metallic under his chin.

"You may want to reconsider doing anything rash right now," Sousuke suggested. "This gun is loaded with hollow points. They are designed for use on soft targets, like people who aren't wearing body armour."

Mousse gulped. "What next?"

"I don't think it would be appropriate for me to discharge my weapon in class at this time, but I will if it becomes necessary."

The teacher found his voice. "I take it that this is one of your friends, Saotome?"

"What? Me? Friends with this muppet?" Ranma scoffed.

"Shall we call the authorities?" asked Sousuke.

"Nah, let him go, he's not as bad as he's been in the past," Ranma waved off the security concerns of his newfound student.

"But he endangered us," the teacher protested.

"Fine, then I'll kick him out the window," Ranma sighed as he closed the distance to the Chinese boy.

"What? Hey! Stop that let go of me!" Mousse struggled in Ranma's iron grip.

Saotome gestured to the largest sliding window. "Sousuke, if you'll do the honours."

Manhandling the male Amazon to the window, Ranma smirked. "I hope that you'll enjoy this flight in your human form."

"Stop that!"

¬PUNT!¬

And so Mousse became a speck on the horizon.

* * *

At lunchtime, Kaname grabbed her co-worker and dragged him to a quiet, secluded spot. 

"What the hell do you think you're playing at, Sousuke?" the blue haired girl demanded. "Bringing out your gun in class like that?"

"I thought it was necessary to ensure that the assailant was no longer a threat to the rest of the class," Sousuke countered.

"I did see the five throwing knives," Kaname sighed. "So this is what Ranma has to deal with every day, huh?"

"There were six of them," Sagara corrected. "And yes, apparently, this is considered a light day for attacks against Ranma."

Chidori shook her head. "What did we get ourselves into?"

* * *

Afternoon at school passed relatively uneventfully, mainly because a squeaky voiced Kuno had left early. 

When the final bell rang, Ranma walked with his new friend to where they were training.

"So how long have you been training, Ranma?" Sousuke asked as they entered the clearing.

"For as long as I can remember. How about you? How long have you been a soldier?" Ranma asked.

"I was a child soldier. I never knew my parents."

"That's rough," Ranma said in a sympathetic tone. "I was only recently reunited with my mom. Stupid panda."

"Panda?" Sousuke asked, not understanding.

Ranma realised he'd made a slip and changed the subject. "You going on the Okinawa trip?"

"I am. Have you made any seating arrangements?"

"Not yet. You?"

"Not at this time," Sousuke hinted.

Ranma put two and two together. "You wanna partner up with me?"

"If you don't mind," Sousuke replied, his plan seemingly falling into place.

"Not at all. Let's get started, shall we?"

* * *

After a good hour and a half's exercise, Ranma decided to let his trainee finish for the day. 

"You've done well, Sousuke. I recommend taking a bath though, your body'll thank you for it in the morning," Ranma advised.

"I don't have a bath in my apartment," Sousuke said, breathing heavily.

"There's a public bath not too far from here," Ranma pointed in a direction away from the school.

"And what about you?" Sousuke was a little disturbed by the apparent lack of fatigue in his sensei.

"I've still got some training to do," Ranma said before taking a swig of his water. "I'm training to be the best, I can't stop after such a short session."

"That was a ninety minute lesson!"

Ranma laughed. "I swam to China. That's the kind of training I went through to get to my level."

"That's insane!" Sousuke insisted, wondering what he'd gotten himself into.

"Don't worry, I don't plan on making you do anything like that. Yet."

* * *

To be continued… 

This chapter was pre-read by Chi Vayne.

Well, it's been a while, hasn't it?

What, you were expecting an apology?

No. Not here.

BeForU was the only person that correctly guessed the source of the omake.

Are there any questions? In answer to the question of "who is going to end up with whom?" all I can say is Ranma and Akane is not going to happen in this one. I did mention that in the early chapters.

Until laterer comes.


End file.
